Rural Report for North Queensland, Friday, March 21, 2014

Confidence counts from paddock to plate

Are they a bit shy or skittish, or are they pretty relaxed and comfortable about having you around the place?

A beef industry veteran reckons personality can make a world of difference to the quality and ultimately, the price paid for cattle.

Jim Cudmore from Reesville, north-west of Brisbane, says turning out a fat, happy and healthy cow can fetch up to 15 dollars more per beast.

Jump on the Queensland Country Hour facebook page to meet Frank, a charolois bull from western Queensland. There's no doubting his confidence in front of the camera... maybe you could tell us about the personality traits of your own cattle.

When an orange is not an orange

Sarina Locke

In New Zealand, the sweet potato or kumara has gone from obscurity to vegetable of the moment through better marketing.

The person behind the turnaround in sales is Lisa Cork who has a history of great marketing stunts, and became known as the "broccoli lady" in the United States.

Her stunt on the lawns of the White House after she discovered George Bush didn't eat broccoli was worth $120 million in free publicity - and that was before the age of the internet!

Now Ms Cork has told the citrus industry to boost sales it needs to reach consumers in a way that ensures product differentiation.

"For industry, an orange is an orange is an orange. Growers often make the assumption consumers know more about their produce than consumers really do. If you think about the fact we're just inundated with hundreds of thousands of messages, where we go 'well a navel is a seedless and it's a nice fruit and it's really juicy' but a shopper may not know that."

"So sometimes it's about not getting caught up in the assumption that shoppers know and assuming instead that shoppers don't know. So let's find a way to craft and tell a story and the same thing applies to mandarines, the same thing applies to most citrus."

Council payroll pitches in to drought aid

Andy Toulson

Council workers in a North Queensland city have decided the best way to help drought-stricken farmers is by reaching into their own pay packets.

The Townsville City Council has made that easier to do by launching a payroll scheme where employees can arrange to have automatic deductions from their pay towards the Aussie Helpers drought campaign.

The idea was put forward by the council's recruitment adviser Leah Barlow-Thompson, who has family on farms in the Charters Towers area, west of Townsville.

"We have 1700 staff here so I suppose I just came up with the idea, I thought we had a pretty captive audience in terms of a large group of people who were hopefully able to contribute and make a difference. It just hopefully highlights to everybody the impact the drought does have on us in the city as well."

Aussie Helpers has a target of raising $2 million dollars this year in its campaign - so far the total is $600,000. Go to aussiehelpers.org.au to find out more.